CHAP. VII. 
GENERAL ACCOUNT OF FEZZAN. 
283 
cast of countenance, which distinguishes them from other blacks ; 
their cheek bones are higher and more prominent, their faces flatter, 
and their noses less depressed and more peaked at the tip than those of 
the Negroes. Their eyes are generally small, and their mouths of an 
immense width, but their teeth are frequently good : their hair is 
woolly, though not completely frizzled. The females bear children 
at 12 and 13 years of age, and at 15 or 16 their breasts fall, and 
they assume the appearance of old women ; in some few instances, 
however, they bear children until 35 years of age. They are a 
cheerful people, fond of dancing and music, and obliging to each 
other. The men almost all read and write a little ; but in every 
thing else they are very dull and heavy : their affections are cold 
and interested, and a kind of general indifference to the common 
incidents of hfe marks all their actions : they are neither prone to 
sudden anger nor exertion, and are not at all revengeful. 
In Morzouk the men drink a great quantity of Lackbi, and are 
very good humoured drunkards. The Arabs practise hospitality 
generally, but amongst the Fezzanners that virtue does not exist ; 
they are, however, very attentive and obsequious to those in whose 
power they are, or who can repay them tenfold for their pretended 
disinterestedness. Their religion enjoins, that should a stranger 
enter while they are at their meals, he must be invited to partake ; 
but they generally contrive to evade this injunction, by eating with 
closed doors. The lower classes are, from necessity, very indus- 
trious, women as well as men ; they draw water, work in the 
gardens, drive the asses, make mats, baskets, &c. in addition to their 
other domestic duties. People of the better class, or more properly 
who can afford to procure slaves to work for them, are, on the con- 
trary, very idle and lethargic ; they do nothing but lounge or loll 
about, inquire what their neighbours have had for dinner, gossip 
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